GAYNESFORD, John I

Gaynesford’s family had become established at Crowhurst by the 1330s, when an ancestor (probably great-grandfather) of our MP acquired the manor of that name.5 See the ped. in Herald and Genealogist ed. Nichols, i. 337. John’s early career is not easy to reconstruct with precision, a consequence of the difficulty of distinguishing some of his activities from those of his father, who may still have been alive in the reign of Henry V.6 W.D. Gainsford, Annals of the House of Gainsford, 12-14. Nevertheless, it seems clear that it was he who in 1411 was named alongside his wife, Margaret, in transactions concerning a tenement called Le Cok on the Hop in the parish of St. Peter Cornhill in London. This rare foray into the London property market may indicate that Margaret was the daughter of a Londoner.7 Corp. London RO, hr 137/99, 138/3, 151/45. As well as three sons who survived into adulthood and emulated their father both by becoming fellows of Lincoln’s Inn and by gaining election to Parliament, it is probable that the couple had another two sons, Thomas and Reynold, who died in childhood and whose monuments were noted by Aubrey in Crowhurst church.8 J. Aubrey, Nat. Hist. and Antiqs. Surr. iii. 39.

As far as his administrative and political career is concerned it is clear that John enjoyed far more success than any of his ancestors, an achievement which ensured that the family remained one of the most prominent in Surrey until the late seventeenth century. This prominence was in part owed to his training in the law and membership of Lincoln’s Inn.9 He took an active role as mainpernor for other fellows of the Inn, such as Bartholomew Bolney*, and was admitted to repasts because of age and ancient continuance in 1435-6: L. Inn, London, Black Bk. 1, ff. 24v, 25v. Gaynesford was appointed to his first royal commission in 1417, along with John Uvedale*, the two men being entrusted with the task of arresting the keeper of the royal park at Lagham in Surrey. He was already active as a feoffee in the county, most notably for his neighbour John Hathersham† (d.1417) of Lingfield. Together with his co-feoffees he obtained a pardon for their trespass in acquiring property from Hathersham without royal licence, and in July 1424 they granted the deceased’s manor of Coombe Neville to Merton priory, for the foundation of a chantry where prayers would be said not only for Hathersham but primarily for the family of the young King Henry VI. A licence for this foundation was obtained by the King’s mother, Katherine de Valois, and provision for religious services was also made for the souls of her father Charles VI of France and her late husband Henry V. The bonds in 1,000 marks which the local lord Sir Reynold Cobham of Sterborough, entered to the co-feoffes at this time were undoubtedly connected with the grant.10 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 321-2; CIPM, xx. 788; CPR, 1416-22, p. 126; 1422-9, p. 202; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 129, 138-9, 146-7, 151, 153.

By 1423 Gaynesford’s abilities had also come to the notice of the abbot of Battle abbey in Sussex, whom he served as steward of the court of the abbey’s lordship at Limesfield for several years. More importantly, before too long he was employed in a similar capacity by Humphrey, earl of Stafford, with regard to the latter’s substantial estates in Surrey. These included the manor of Bletchingley and by 1428 Gaynesford was serving as steward of the court there, a post which came with an annual fee of 26s. 8d. There can be little doubt that he was responsible for arranging the elections for the borough of Bletchingley to the Parliaments of 1431 and 1433 of his sons William and John II. On the first of these occasions he himself entered the Commons as a shire knight for Surrey. This was shortly after the end of his term as escheator of that county and Sussex. He and William were the first members of their family to be returned to Parliament, emphasizing the Gaynesfords’ rise to prominence in this period. Not surprisingly, John Gaynesford, called ‘esquire’, was among those of Surrey listed to take the oath against maintenance in 1434,11 CPR, 1429-36, p. 380. and in the following year he received his first appointment to the county bench.

Gaynesford’s standing in Surrey and beyond was based not only upon the estates he had inherited, but also upon his own acquisitions. The process of enlarging the family’s landed holdings was documented in its cartulary, whose compilation was almost certainly the work of John himself, and was continued by both his eldest son and grandson. The cartulary eventually came to include copies of more than 200 deeds, most of which related to transactions undertaken in two phases, the first being the middle decades of the fourteenth century, when the core of the estate had been acquired, with the second period of activity centring on the first four decades of the fifteenth century, when our MP was head of the family. The cartulary reveals much about the manner in which he expanded the family’s land-holdings in Surrey and elsewhere. The first significant purchase, in 1418, was the substantial manor-house known as Crowhurst Place. It became Gaynesford’s principal residence and, as his will later demonstrated, was furnished and equipped in a manner appropriate to someone of his standing. In the meantime, further properties, including the manor of Horne, were acquired, probably by purchase.12 Harl. 392, ff. 13v, 52, 55v, 57; CP25(1)/232/72/73, 73a, 85; VCH Surr. iv. 292. In the neighbouring county of Sussex Gaynesford purchased in 1433 the manor of Bevingdean from John Nelond*, for whom he had previously acted as a feoffee. Nelond was to name him an executor of his will. By 1436 he had also acquired the entirety of the nearby manor of Ovingdean, previously divided into thirds, and other holdings in the county including land at Southwick.13 VCH Suss. vii. 225, 229-30; Add. 39488, f. 247; CCR, 1409-13, p. 299; 1429-35, p. 64; Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 249; Suss. Arch. Collns. xlvii. 58, lxiii. 91; PCC 21 Luffenham (PROB11/3, ff. 168v-169v). As the careful compilation of the cartulary suggests, one of Gaynesford’s principal concerns was for the proper administration of his growing portfolio of properties, and it was for this reason that he ensured that the estates were at all times in the hands of reliable feoffees, such as John Hipperon* and Sir Thomas Lewknor*.14 Harl. 392, ff. 22, 44v-45; VCH Surr. iv. 275-6, 278.

John’s own popularity as a feoffee in Surrey has, however, been the cause of some confusion as to the actual extent to which he added to the family lands. In particular, it was assumed by one historian of the family that Gaynesford acquired the valuable manors of Carshalton and Beddington from Nicholas Carew† (d.1432), although it is clear from the transactions that he was involved purely as a trustee. One of the more important of those who were entrusted with Carew’s lands, he was also named among his executors.15 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 483; Gainsford, 15; CCR, 1419-22, pp. 224-6; CP25(1)/292/67/120, 138; C1/2/38.

Gaynesford’s successful expansion of his family’s estates placed him among the wealthier gentry in Surrey. In 1436 his income from land was assessed by his fellow commissioners of the tax levied that year at £60 p.a. from Surrey, Sussex and Kent. According to the cartulary, his holdings in Surrey and Sussex included by the time of his death no fewer than 14 separate manors or other estates, but there are no indications as to the extent of his properties in Kent.16 Surr. Hist. Centre, Woking, Loseley mss, 1719; Gainsford, 22. Not surprisingly, in 1430 and again in 1439 he was distrained for knighthood, a clear indication of his status. Uppermost in Gaynesford’s mind was the furtherance of the interests of his eldest son, John, who stood to inherit these estates. At some point, perhaps in the early 1430s, the heir was married to Anne, the daughter of Richard Wakehurst† (d.1455), a leading Sussex lawyer, and this alliance was strengthened by the marriage of our MP’s daughter, Agnes, to Wakehurst’s son and heir, also named Richard. When the younger Richard predeceased his father the interests of his two daughters by Agnes were entrusted to two of their Gaynesford uncles, John II and William. The Gaynesfords’ manor of Bevingdean may well have formed part of Agnes’s dower, and eventually passed into the hands of the Culpepper family following her second marriage to Sir John Culpepper (d.1480).17 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 732; VCH Suss. vii. 225.

The family’s position was also advanced through the realization of a distant claim to the manors of Hampton Poyle in Oxfordshire and Poyle in Surrey, as well as another manor of that name at Stanwell in Middlesex. This claim derived from the marriage of John’s grandfather to Margery, daughter of John de la Poyle (d.1317).18 CP40/743, rot. 431d. The estates descended to another John de la Poyle who in June 1422, following the death of Henry, his son and heir, leased them to Gaynesford and others, in an attempt to protect them from royal wardship during the minority of the next heir, his infant grandson Robert. The ploy proved successful when de la Poyle died in the following year, and Gaynesford and his fellows were permitted (for a fine) to keep possession.19 CIPM, xxii. 278, 280-1; CPR, 1422-9, p. 164; VCH Oxon. vi. 161. The date of young Robert’s death is unknown, but it had certainly taken place by March 1438 when a royal licence was obtained by three of the original feoffees of Hampton Poyle which allowed them to convey the manor to Robert’s maternal grandfather, Robert Warner* of Hayes, Middlesex, for life, with reversion to our MP and his eldest son. Warner died the following year, and the Gaynesfords were duly confirmed in possession of the Oxfordshire and Surrey manors in the summer of 1440. At Warner’s inquisitions post mortem the manors were valued at some £15 p.a. (almost certainly an underestimate),20 CP25(1)/292/69/215; CPR, 1436-41, p. 151; CIPM, xxv. 162-3. and to these properties Gaynesford added the de la Poyle manors of Tongham and Cotford, demonstrating his title to the latter in a suit he brought against Thomas Slyfeld* in the court of common pleas in 1446.21 CP40/743, rot. 431d. The prospect that Gaynesford’s eldest son, John, would inherit the de la Poyle manors as well as the other Gaynesford estates would have been readily apparent to Walter Green*, who had married Elizabeth Warner, the widow of Henry de la Poyle. Arrangements for the second marriage of the younger John to one of Green’s daughters, Katherine, were duly set in motion, and in July 1447 as part of the marriage settlement, our MP gave the couple Hampton Poyle in jointure.22 CPR, 1446-52, p. 66; Harl. 392, ff. 89-95v; Gainsford, 8-10. The previous year he had obtained a royal pardon in which, as well as being described as of Crowhurst and Guildford, he was said to be ‘late of Hampton Poyle and Stanwell’.23 C67/39, m.48.

In the meantime Gaynesford’s first wife had died, and by the late 1430s he had married Elizabeth, the widow of John Benefeld, a fairly wealthy Sussex gentleman who had inherited property that included lands in Twineham and Hangleton said in 1412 to be worth £40 p.a.24 Suss. Arch. Collns. x. 141. The marriage had taken place by 1439 when he and his wife were receiving an annual rent of eight marks from the manor of Westdean which may well have formed part of her dower. Four years later Benefeld’s son, also named John, released to Gaynesford further lands in Sussex, including some in Lewes, and in 1448 he quitclaimed to Gaynesford his interest in the manors of Walderne Wauncy and Walderne Raund, as well as the hundred of Foxhunte and other lands in Sussex subject to a rent of 20 marks p.a. Meanwhile, Gaynesford had relinquished possession of Benfeld in Twineham to his stepson.25 E. Suss. RO, Suss. Arch. Soc. mss, SAS-M/1/396; CCR, 1441-7, p. 148; 1447-54, p. 51; W. Suss. RO, Wiston mss, WISTON/3011.

For several years Gaynesford had been engaged as a feoffee of land in Lingfield for Sir Reynold Cobham, the duchess of Gloucester’s father, and after Cobham’s death in 1446 he assisted his widow Anne to further endow the Cobham foundation of Lingfield College, and to make settlements of her estates in other counties.26 CP25(1)/232/71/60; CPR, 1446-52, p. 240; E159/234, brevia Mich. rot. 28. In 1450, just a few months before Gaynesford died, Nicholas Aysshton*, a justice of the common pleas, brought a suit in his own court against him, accusing him of unlawful disseisin of property in Godstone and Bletchingley. Our MP promptly appeared in court by attorney to deny the charge, saying that the property had previously belonged to the Godstone family and that he had no claim to it. Naturally, this was accepted by the judge, who waived damages. The suit was clearly collusive, to reinforce Aysshton’s title.27 CP40/756, rot. 317d. Several earlier transactions show Gaynesford making arrangements for the smooth transfer of the family estates to his eldest son, presumably in anticipation of his death. In 1447, for instance, he had settled on him a messuage and some 500 acres at Horne.28 VCH Surr. iv. 293. The MP was removed from the bench in January 1449, but by this time he had already made his will which was dated 12 Nov. 1448. Most of his bequests were directed towards members of his family: his sons William and Nicholas were to receive silver vessels, while Elizabeth, William’s daughter, was left £10 for her marriage. The bulk of the goods mentioned in the will were left to John II, and these included valuable items of gold and silver plate such as a ‘cristmas bolle’ and two powder boxes. Gaynesford bequeathed his heir the remaining contents of the chapel, hall, chamber, kitchen and brewery at Crowhurst Place along with cattle from the estate including 25 bullocks of various ages, several horses and some pigs. The comfortable lifestyle to which the Gaynesfords had become accustomed was further reflected in his bequests to several servants. The contents of the house were left by Gaynesford to his son on condition that they would subsequently pass on to the latter’s own heir and then ‘from heir to heir in succession’. He appointed his three adult sons as his executors, and required them to arrange for his burial before the altar in Crowhurst parish church. His second wife appears to have predeceased him. Gaynesford lived on some time after making his will, dying on 20 July 1450. By then all his estates had probably been placed in the hands of feoffees, for the inquisition post mortem stated that Gaynesford held no lands of the King in Surrey at the time of his death. The will itself was eventually proved on 9 Nov.29 PCC 12 Rous (PROB11/1, f.95); C139/144/39.

Gaynesford’s death coincided with the uprisings in the south-east led by Jack Cade, and the killing at Sevenoaks of kinsmen of his employer the duke of Buckingham, on 18 June, but there is no firm evidence to show that he too was a victim of the rebels.